Vengeance (31 page)

"No one knows whether these stories are true or just that—stories,” the first scoffed.

"Will you SHUT UP!” someone shouted, to scattered applause. “Just let us watch it in peace."

The shape swirled around and around the cabin. The spellhound, watching it intently, thought
It's reminiscent of a playful puppy
. Then the shape turned its gaze on the spellhound; the hunter felt the weight of an intellect so vast it could have crushed it, so old and more alien than anything it had ever encountered. The spellhound whimpered in fear, and suddenly the pressure lifted. The thing rippled and, as unexpectedly as it had appeared, was gone.

"It's almost unheard of for one of them to come as close as this one has to the Earth,” the pilot said in an awed voice.

When gravity returned, they fell toward the Equatorial Ribbon. It cut the sky, a vast cheese-wire three kilometres wide by one hundred and sixty-five thousand long. The spellhound calculated: If it added the Polar Ribbon, then there were two million square kilometres and a billion souls to shelter amongst. No matter—wherever O'Malley was, it would find him. The hookcar stopped, and the spellhound was almost weightless again, the gravity was so light.

"Citizens, visitors, others,” the pilot said over the murmurs. “We've arrived at the Equatorial Ribbon, Stationary Zone. This sector has point-zero-one gee so we suggest you refrain from extreme physical activity, including running or leaping, during your first days on The Ribbon. Toward the outer edges of The Ribbon, gravity increases to one gee. Please take care when disembarking, and ensure you take all your possessions with you. We wish you a pleasant journey, wherever it takes you."

They docked and disembarked in a tidal surge. The spellhound felt a momentary qualm when it entered the checkpoint and felt the surge of radiation. But it was low level and over before it could cause any irreparable damage. “It's to stop diseases or other nasties coming in,” the woman at the booth said, in answer to the spellhound's question.

Outside the terminus, peddlers hawked their sisters, brothers, drugs, currency (the same as Earth's—but many visitors were gullible enough to buy counterfeit coins), and even local spells. The spellhound was tempted, but while some of its own spells might be affected by local conditions, these could be defective or even sabotaged. It had no way of knowing if it was buying gilt or dross, so ignored them all. Once past the hawkers, arrivals were the targets of the many sects that thrived on the Ribbon, all looking for converts.

The spellhound felt a surge of adrenaline at the sheer vibrant clamour around it. There was so much energy! So much life compared to Earth! It cut through the clamouring crowd, its very presence seemingly clearing it a path. It climbed into one of the waiting pedicabs. The driver was nearly as tall as the spellhound, thin and wiry with whipcord muscles, facial whiskers similar to wings, and a braid similar to the vendor's on the hookcar but without the beetles.

—I require accommodation for ten days.—

"You want a place that'll take someone, if you'll pardon me, out of the ordinary, good ser.” The pedicab driver had a nasal whine. “You want Counter-clock. Clockwise's a little conservative. Stationary's, well stationary.” He sniggered at his own wit. “You won't get many hotels to take you, no offence meant."

—None taken. Counter, then.—

They moved out, the old man straining to start even in the near weightlessness.
Mass
, the spellhound thought,
is after all mass
. It sat back and looked around. The Ribbon had been built by a technology so ancient its builders had been all but forgotten. On closer study, outer walls were pitted with the myriad scars of micrometeorites too small to be noticed by the defences. In some places, the less important areas, metal surfaces had been left to rust, walls had collapsed. Other parts were overgrown with kudzu and Vegan sporeweed. Although The Ribbon radiated vibrancy, here and there a few places showed traces of neglect, like a sprightly old man wearing a fine suit whose buttons are misaligned.

Sunflowers rose to the height of trees here. Trees rose to the height of skyscrapers. Huge redwoods the size of mountains lined the avenues. Willows waved their drooping branches. The spellhound had never seen so much rampant wildlife.

Birds were everywhere. There were parakeets and macaws shrieking abuse from windowsills, hummingbirds flitting from flower to flower, gangs of lorikeets squawking at each other, and at one point the spellhound was sure it saw a hawk stooping to attack from on high. They seemed to thrive in the microgravity. A sparrow buzzed the spellhound, and it swivelled to follow its flight.

"Don't have starlings here, ‘cause they flock, and gulls buzz people,” the driver called out. “Then again, lorikeets and budgerigars flock, too. We have to get the shit cleaned off places every night. Still, gives the cleaners something to do and the birds of prey a bit of variety."

The spellhound craned its head first one way then the other. The smells! There were smells on Earth, of course, but these were new, exciting! It inhaled deeply, almost giddy with sensory overload. Behind the trees, high-rises towered over the trees to a height that would have been insane on earth.

"Good, huh?” The driver grinned. “Some of them towers is ten kays high. They're lower on the belts, of course. Still, they're right on the edge of space, up there with the field they use to stop the air dissipating.” He clearly wanted to impress the spellhound but was starting to become irritating.

The spellhound held up a paw for silence.

The driver shrugged but complied.

They rode on in a pleasant silence that allowed the spellhound to watch its surroundings in peace.

"As far as I can take you, bud,” the driver said. “There's the first strip of Counter. I can't go no further. You cross the strip, an’ you can get another cab.” He named an exorbitantly high fee, to which the spellhound added a generous bonus.

The whole section of The Ribbon was moving. The spellhound had read about this in the brochure. Eight kilometres an hour didn't seem much on the printed page but was daunting in reality. The spellhound hopped warily onto the moving pavement, walked two hundred metres and repeated the process on the next strip, eight kilometres an hour faster again. It'd heard that the outer belt, The Edge, was the most expensive and exclusive area, so stopped on the penultimate belt.

As local gravity increased on each belt, so both trees and buildings grew more compact and similar to their earthbound cousins.

The driver of the next pedicab suggested a boarding house. The landlady, a wizened scarecrow of a woman, clearly considered her guest's appearance less important than whether it could pay the rent. The spellhound moved into a cramped attic room in a four-storey ziggurat which lurked amongst the huge buildings towering around it.

The spellhound started its hunt. Ten days became twenty while it roamed The Ribbon in fruitless pursuit of men maddeningly like O'Malley. At one point the spellhound wondered if its quarry was employing decoys or even confusions—but no. Whether deliberately or not, O'Malley simply hadn't used magic while he was on The Ribbon, and the spellhound needed magic to zero in on. Occasionally it came across a lingering imprint of his presence. He had been here; he was still here somewhere. The agents who'd spotted O'Malley on The Ribbon were still stationed at all exit and entry points, whether possible or improbable. If O'Malley fled back to Earth, the spellhound would know.

If it had been a man, the spellhound would've gone mad with frustration. That was why men had developed spellhounds. But success or otherwise was irrelevant. It would simply continue until it found O'Malley or conceded it was impossible. Even before this latest pursuit, it had never spent as long on a case, but that didn't worry it. Duff's money ensured that it would have its monthly dose of life-giving drugs. Its needs were simple. It needed monthly injections, shelter, and food. And it needed to hunt. So it waited for its chance, a cat waiting at a two-million-square kilometre mouse-hole.

The Ribbon was a pleasant place to work. Madam Butterkiss fed it well, collected her rent, and was happy. Her guest might be a little strange, but it was quiet, didn't get drunk and sing in the small hours, or vomit or get in fights. She greeted it one evening with, “You've got a visitor.” The spellhound studied her face for a hint, but it remained as serene and unlined as ever. “I showed her to your room."

Jocasta smiled. “It's time for your monthly injection."

—In person. I'm privileged.—

"I thought it better you kept working without breaking to come down.” Jocasta pressed the plunger and wiped its arm. She looked tired, and the spellhound guessed Duff was pressuring her for results.

—Is Duff happy with our work?—

She smiled wanly. “I don't know. I make sure I'm out when I call and leave him messages. The evil old bastard keeps asking me to contact him, and I pretend not to have got his messages instructing me to break off."

—So you've taken refuge?—

"Just for the day.” She smiled again. “Don't worry about it. I'll take care of him; you find O'Malley."

So the spellhound persevered. Its routine was simple and unvarying. The Ribbon pulsed with life around the clock. The combination of sunlight, moonlight, and earthlight meant there was no true night. People lived in shifts, shops opened around the clock, and people invented their own morning, afternoon, and evening. The spellhound's night was timed with the other guests’ to coincide with the few hours Madame Butterkiss locked the house upon retiring to bed.

Every morning it breakfasted, then walked to nearby Vrahiola Park, smuggling with it some stale crusts from the breadbox in the kitchen. There it would sit by the lake and feed the ducks, which quickly grew to recognise a willing victim and rushed to mob it when it sat down. It felt a curious affinity with the ducks; their needs were even simpler than its own.

Then it removed its boots and walked around the grass, sniffing, tracking squirrels and birds and other small creatures, and catching up on the new smells in the park. Then it meditated briefly before donning its boots again. Only when it had completed its morning ritual did it set out to find and kill the man who had its client's property.

In time, even the vast Ribbon became familiar. The spellhound grew used to graceful minarets soaring over ugly boxes, needle-thin skyscrapers kilometres tall by only metres wide, standing next to long, low warehouses. The greatest extravaganzas were in Stationary whilst the most utilitarian were toward The Edge, intermingling with the luxury apartments of the rich in uneasy coexistence.

Even though The Ribbon was less crowded than the teeming Earth, pedestrians thronged the thoroughfares. Cycles and pedicabs dived through the gaps, but even the craziest cyclists hesitated to balk the occasional tram rumbling through the streets. Tram drivers believed they held their jobs by divine right and drove accordingly.

Most airborne traffic was official or cargo craft. A few orbiters crossed longer distances, and when the spellhound used these to travel further away, it wondered whether its quarry dodged him using the same methods. It thought not but brought up reinforcements for salient points on the transport network. Still no one admitted to seeing O'Malley. Day after day it showed the man's picture and proffered bribes. It spent money as if it were water, to no avail.

It became familiar with the brightly painted, strangely shaped ships from across the system that congregated—like schools of fish on a reef—at the margins of The Edge. There were great potbellied freighters that trudged out to the Ice Giants and even to icy little Pluto and all the way back, there were cruise liners with their huge observation ports and the little cis-lunar shuttles.

Above all, it became familiar with the different areas. The wealthier citizens of The Edge were particularly uneasy at having this strange, sinister creature haunting their genteel suburbs. But after a few inconclusive but brutal skirmishes, the hired bravos left it alone. A greater problem was the militia, who had little tolerance for freelancers, especially freelancers from Earth.

Tinian and Arquette were archetypal militia. It wasn't their uniform, a functional blue boilersuit that on Tinian still made most men and women take a second look. It wasn't anything physical, though they were slabs of muscle, Arquette dark-haired to Tinian's platinum, he taller by only centimetres and muscles pumped up a little more. What identified them was their misanthropy and cynicism, worn as helmet and shield against involvement with those they were supposed to protect and serve.

The spellhound was in Vrahiola Park as usual, doing its exercises. It looked up. It had noticed that the patrol car, an oversized sled with a windscreen and an engine, had developed an irritating clunk in the right thruster whenever they powered down and hovered.

"Hey woofer!” Tinian, the more hostile of the two, called. Irritated at being ignored, she shouted again: “C'mon doggie! Gotta bone fer ya."

Arquette put his hand on her arm. “Easy."

She shrugged, jumped down from the car. “We got your man."

The spellhound lifted its head to stare at her.—Where?—

She ignored the question. “C'mon, we'll take ya. But we not got all day to waste.” She jumped, hauled herself in.

With a single bound the spellhound landed in the back behind her, then squirmed around, making itself comfortable.

The House of Clarity, where they said O'Malley was staying, was on the Polar Ribbon. The patrol car raced to the pylon linking the two strips, then slowed and flew parallel.

Neither of the militia spoke except Arquette, once. “See, you're stirring up a mess of irritations. This guy's not a local, so we owe him nothing. We talked among us, and we thought if we take you to him, your business here's finished. It
is
finished then, isn't it?” he asked pointedly.

—If it is O'Malley, then it's finished. I've no other reason to stay. I'll be gone as soon as I've checked out of the boarding house.—